FIL 357 Real Estate Appraisal and FIL 360 Real Estate Investment and Financing. They were hands-on; participative and interactive. They were very relevant both to the work I was doing at the time, as marketing coordinator for a real estate brokerage-construction-development firm, and to the work I do now. These classes weren't just about theory and principles, where there was a test to take and everything would be forgotten the next day.

Fond campus memory

The feeling of each new fall semester at ISU. Football games, back-to-school parties, new faces, and everyone back for new classes.

How your ISU Finance studies affect your work

My practice is devoted exclusively to real estate law. I work with clients through every stage of the transaction process. My primary job is to prepare and review legal documents, handle negotiations, coordinate with title companies, and represent buyers and sellers at closings. These activities all relate directly to my law school education, of course, but I feel that my Finance degree was solid preparation for my law program. Clients also ask for my advice on valuation questions, financing issues, and dealing with mortgage lenders, which definitely relate back to my finance course work at Illinois State, especially the real estate courses, and to basic economics as well. In addition, I'm self-employed, so when events outside my control delay progress on a transaction I still have to pay all of my business expenses, even though the money isn't coming in, and an understanding of cash flow, which you learn about in finance courses, becomes extremely important. As an entrepreneur in a competitive field, I have to examine client needs and market my services; for those issues, I still use materials from my marketing class.

What you would tell others about the Finance program at Illinois State

The Finance program at ISU provides a formal education with a personal touch. The faculty are dedicated to seeing that students don't take courses solely because they are required for a particular degree; rather, they want you to be able to take something you have learned from each class and apply it to everyday life.